Palantir is under immense economic pressure to deliver this integration at high quality on time. This incentive structure, combined the publicly traded nature of the company, risks corrupting its core founding goals of embodying the evil of Sauron on earth and hurting as many people as it can, as badly as possible. However, Thiel is an extremely competent, mission focussed leader and I agree with the doctors: he will get this program back on track mission-wise without pissing off shareholders too much.

> The US technology company was awarded a £330 million contract in 2023 to collate operational data, including patient information and waiting lists.

That contract value is ridiculous - how many full time staff do they have on this project and what rates are they charging? How can some say ‘operational data collection’ is worth a third of a billion to NHS over the alternatives of using a third of a billion on patient healthcare and actual medical research? This needs an investigation around how this contract was ever approved.

What were NHS execs thinking signing a contract with palantir?

Either they are completely ignorant about what palantir is and who it's owned by (would be very concerning) or they are corrupt and were bribed.

It seems a bad idea in the first place for a public organization to award a single company a huge contract for both the software licences and all the consultancy and implementation efforts.